In today’s post I want to explore how you could create a garden design that incorporates ways to keep rabbits out of your yard. I’ve previously touched on some common methods you can follow to keep rabbits out of your garden here.
This is more than just placing these methods in your garden – although you could and should do that if needed. instead, I want to show you how to subtly blend these methods, or ways to accommodate them, into a larger design.
To quickly recap, the best ways to keep rabbits out of your garden include:
- Use a physical barrier like a fence or wall to enclose your whole garden or growing space
- Fence off a specific garden bed you want to protect
- Place tree guards around individual trees or shrubs
- Remove cover from around your garden so rabbits can’t hide in it
- Break up planting rows to discourage continued grazing
- Opt for raised garden beds or have a high work bench to keep vulnerable plants out of reach
- Place animal hair, fur, used litter or faeces to imitate a predator’s hunting ground
- Use specialised deterrent products like fox urine, dried blood, sprays, clip-on items, “scarecrows” or ultrasonic sound repellers
- Create homemade repellents to spray or soak items in, to be placed around your garden
- Place spiky, fuzzy or leathery plants with strong odours or milky sap throughout your garden – these are less appealing to rabbits
Now not all of these require you overhaul your garden. Large things like fences/walls, raised beds, benches, or how you layout your actual plants may require some planning and design work.
Other approaches are little, sometimes temporary, tricks. But even those can be supported in clever ways, to improve their effectiveness and longevity.
How To Incorporate Rabbit Prevention Into Your Design
Before we look at some of the specific methods I touched on above, I want to step back and outline how you should think about incorporating them into a larger design.
I always say it’s better to develop a whole design than create something piece by piece. Designing everything from the beginning allows you to use a component – a wall, steps, benches, paths, garden beds etc. – for more than one purpose.
This lets you ‘layer’ more uses into a space, and deal with specific problems within your overall design – not as a bandaid on top.
This lense is particularly helpful when it comes to addressing a small problem – like keeping rabbits out of your garden – amongst a larger design.
Instead of taking specific measures to deal with it, you can incorporate – from the beginning – some of these techniques and concepts into other components. All you need to do is recognise these opportunities and explore how you can take advantage of them.
We’ll see this approach in a few of the explorations below. I hope, once you’ve gone through a few of them, they’ll make sense, and you can start your own exploration.
Build A Fence To Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Garden
Clearly the easiest way to stop rabbits getting in your garden is with a fence. To ensure it is effective, you want to make it about 3 ft tall, and have a mesh/wire material dug around 6-12 inches below ground level, to prevent burrowing in.
The most common fence around a garden is a timber frame supporting wire or mesh. It’s cheap, easy to install and flexible – able to contort to a number of layouts, terrains and heights.
This image shows the simplicity of a timber and wire fence. Here you’d want to have slightly narrower wire to ensure little rabbits can’t squeeze through. And that the wire extends beneath the surface to prevent burrowing.
One of the main benefits of such a simple setup is you can make it any height you want. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to make a wire fence taller than using another material. That said, timber and wire aren’t the only materials you can turn to when creating a fence or wall.
Brick, Stone, Concrete Or Earth Walls Also Keep Rabbits Out Of Gardens
While obvious, many people wouldn’t turn to these materials when trying to build a wall to keep rabbits out. But if your design includes some low, heavier material walls or benches, you could take advantage of them.
The cost doesn’t seem so outlandish if you’re building a bench for people to sit on, and, as a bonus, it doubles as a rabbit proof wall.
The image above is from ACLA design in the US. It has bold black concrete walls that cut across the garden. I’m not expecting you to build something like this, but there may be opportunities for a low wall like this to extend from one area into another, while doubling as a rabbit proof wall.
Perhaps your design (or existing space) has a low wall that ends at a point – like edge of the decking above. If you continue it further (like the orange lines above) it can become a perimeter wall to protect your garden from rabbits! So your design approach changes to incorporate an extended wall that wraps around a space.
To find these kinds of opportunities, consider the spaces you want in your garden that might include stone or brick walls or benches, and place your garden next to it. That way, you can extend your wall along, into, or around your garden in a more deliberate, and refined, way.
Alternatively you might take the opposite approach and decide another space (like a fire pit or entertaining area) could use a low brick or stone bench. So you add that bench into the other space, conveniently taking advantage of it to fence of or protect your garden.
Retaining Walls Can Keep Garden Beds Safe From Rabbits
If you live on a slope, retaining walls might be the way to go. Terracing your yard improves functionality across the space, and can give you flexibility when designing.
Having a moderately high retaining wall – 2-3 ft – should be enough to discourage rabbits from reaching your garden. Just be very careful when it comes to large drops. Many councils have limits on how tall you can have an open face or drop before you require a balustrade/ handrail.
A neat option might be to mix a wall and retaining wall. So have a retaining wall on one side (2 – 3 ft high), but a regular low wall on the other (1 ft or so). This variation may keep it safe and small on the garden side, but provide more protection from the outside.
Try A Quirky “Ha-Ha” Or Moat To Stop Rabbits Entering Your Garden
If you have the space, or inclination, you could try a few quirky ideas to stop rabbits entering your garden.
A Ha-ha is a wall that sits below ground level. It’s like a retaining wall, with a vertical face, but the ground in front of it slopes from the base up to the true ground level. It’s purpose is to maintain the functionality of a paddock, but remove the usual wall from view, leaving the landscape clean and uncluttered.
If a ha-ha isn’t your thing, you could opt for a moat and fill it with water, rocks or spiky plants. These are probably somewhat extreme, but may be something you want to explore – at least on paper initially.
The only concern with this concept is rabbits are far better at jumping horizontally than vertically. This may mean they are able to clear the moat or ha-ha with ease, rendering the technique less useful.
Use Raised Garden Beds To Keep Plants Out Of Rabbit’s Reach
An obvious approach is to simply raise the garden bed off the ground. Raised beds are useful for many reasons, including increasing accessibility and ease of gardening.
To ensure they are properly rabbit proof, add some mesh or wire beneath the bed so they can’t dig up into the soil. Additionally, make sure they’re around 3 ft high so rabbits aren’t able to jump into them.
Place Vulnerable Plants On A Bench Or Ledge Away From Rabbits
While your plants are young and vulnerable, you might be able to place them on a high bench, ledge or table to keep them out of reach. Once they reach a respectable size you could look to replant them in another area of the garden.
Another approach is to have different ledges, shelves or benches around your garden and place pot plants on those. Again, you can look for opportunities to add these kinds of ledges around your design – they can be as high, long and wide as you like.
Just make sure you water them, or provide some form of irrigation, and you will be surprised to find how much additional growing space you have when you look beyond a conventional garden bed or patch.
Create A Custom Tabletop Garden Bed That Is Rabbit Proof
Why not have a raised garden bed that flows into an actual tabletop entertaining space? Then your produce is right there, fresh to pick for your meal as you dine (you might need to rinse it first). Similar to how some kitchen benches morph from preparation space to table.
Grow Plants In A Vertical Garden To Keep Plants Out Of Reach Of Rabbits
Imagine setups like this vertical garden wall, set up high enough off the ground, to prevent rabbits getting anywhere near it.
If that is a little challenging, you could opt for a more straightforward vertical ‘pot’ wall like the house below. Either way, if you don’t have much space, a vertical wall might be just what you need to prevent rabbits from destroying your garden.
Again, you want to ensure you prepare decent irrigation and drainage to keep your plants healthy.
Create A Barrier Of Rabbit Deterrent Plants Around Your Garden
Plant a garden bed or even little row of plants rabbits don’t like – spiny, leathery, milky or smelly plants. You can even ask your local expert to help you choose options that will work with your overall design.
Cacti might be more intense than you want, but if you keep this type of plant in mind, you’ll know what to target when trying to match this plant option (or options) to your garden bed and overall design.
Image from unsplash.com
Add Hooks, Ledges Or Nooks Around Your Garden To Cover Rabbit Deterrents
This is a flexible concept that can cover a lot of places. It could take the form of extending the capping of your walls, benches or even borders/edges so they overhang the face a little.
Under these eaves you can place rabbit repellents. Things like sprays, waxes, pellets or things like cotton balls you’ve soaked in a rabbit repellent. With enough cover, you can extend how long they will stay effective.
You can try a similar thing with little nooks around your garden. Add little alcoves in your walls – by recessing a brick out here or there, or carving out some space. Then place your various rabbit deterrents inside. This will help them last longer, and keep things looking a little neater, and maybe more interesting.
Place ‘Open’ Spaces Near Your Garden To Remove Places Rabbits Can Hide
One way to reduce cover around your garden for rabbits to hide in is to position your garden near spaces you’d usually keep clear and open. It might be entertaining areas you pave, a lawn area you keep neat and tidy or a utility space you hang washing or store tools and equipment.
You can see the lawn around this garden fence has been mowed and any surrounding hiding places (except a large log directly in front) have been removed. More could be done to reduce cover along the rear fenceline, but we can’t necessarily remove all cover in the yard.
Regardless of what it is, positioning these things next to each other will naturally reduce the cover rabbits will find around your garden. This can be a nice alternative to having to keep the area around your garden completely open and bare, which can look a bit unsightly.
Hopefully these little tips and tricks were helpful. You see there are many ways you can think about and incorporate methods to keep rabbits out of your garden, into your garden design or existing backyard.
If you’d like to learn more about the different rabbit prevention methods, read this post. If you’d like to learn more about design in general, check out my 6 Step Beginner Guide, or my ebooks – Landscape Design 101 or my more in depth 101 Landscape Design Guide.